Brands, celebrities and companies are not the only ones that can formulate some great partnerships.
This partnership has been months in the making, and I am thrilled my PR class at the University of Louisville will be partnering and working with The Breeders’ Cup (BC) this semester as a class client!
This semester, I have 16 students (both graduate and undergraduate) who will be part of this class for the next few months. I am very excited and thrilled for my students to have this amazing opportunity here to work not just with some amazing professionals (so great to work with you, Shona and Kaitlin!), but to really gain some great hands on experience in one of the biggest industries we have in Kentucky.
What are some of the things we will be working on? Here’s a small preview of what we will be doing:
Strong social media strategy content. While this is a PR class, social media is a key part of what we will be focusing on here for what we are going to be doing for The Breeders’ Cup and their festival. Students are going to be getting a range of different opportunities in this space from strategic thinking, proposing, and actually executing the content. Which brings forth my next point.
Creatively executing ideas. One of the things I am a big believer in is making sure students have the opportunity to say – not only did I come up with this idea, but here’s how we implemented it.
This is what my class will be doing. I am very grateful to BC for allowing my students to strategize, brainstorm, and then actually implement their ideas for this event. I am excited to see what the students come up with for BC!
Research experience. Like all PR campaigns and classes – research is crucial. We will be doing major research analysis both in the traditional sense, but also on social media as well. Listening, monitoring, and reporting these findings are going to be some of the ways in which we will be able to showcase our ideas with evidence for our class client.
Training resources. Of course, in order to best understand the importance of some of these key items here for PR and social media practices, we have to make sure the students have the resources necessary to be able to do the best job they can.
As we speak, the students are going to be completing their HubSpot Academy in social media certification (so they have a clear ideas for what needs to be incorporated in a social media strategy) and they have the option to also do Hootsuite’s Social Media Marketing certification (great certification!). Something new I am going to be also sharing with the students this semester is Stukent’s Mimic Social program. This program provides students to go through simulations on specific actions on social media – including social ads as well as crisis management. This will be good training here for the students to take advantage of for this class!
Professor as an “honorary” group member. Yep! This professor is going to be working a lot this semester as well!
I have done this for my social media classes in the past – while it’s the responsibility of the students to do the work of course for the client, I tell them I will be an “honorary group member” to help them bounce around ideas, brainstorm new ideas, and work through some parts of their campaign. Like my students, I will be able to get some hands on experience as well with BC, which I am very excited about.
There are times professors get criticized for not having “real world experience” – but this is definitely an example of how we are bridging the gap between industry and the profession. I am a big believer of not just talking about what we can do in social media, but actually doing it myself. By being part of this project, my students and I will both be able to say we were able to do this and have evidence to back up these points.
Overall, I am thrilled, excited, and ready to get this partnership and collaboration going!
I am looking forward to this semester and I hope you all are able to follow along this semester. I’ll be sharing the updates for the class on all of my social media platforms, and let me know if you have any questions!
Have a great day.
Best Wishes,
